Monday, April 30, 2012

If you've been around a while, I need not explain to you that we have an affinity for Chinese food in my family. Well, all of us except mr, which is funny since he has to travel there so frequently. Although, he is the first to say that what he eats there really is nothing like the Chinese food we make...

Anyway. I saw some sesame chicken pinned on pinterest and knew I'd have to make it for my mom's sake - it's one of her favorite dishes. You can find the original recipe on blogchef.net here. I didn't change a single thing from the recipe, so I won't repost it here. I highly suggest you click over and take a look though. It takes just a bit of work and is astonishingly similar to what you'd find in a restaurant - actually better, because the sauce seems lighter and not as syrupy. Also, the same post at blogchef.net includes an entire Chinese buffet of recipes - not kidding. 9 more yummy sounding recipes that I'm going to have to go back and try.

I decided to make my baked crab rangoons as well. I've made them many times in the past. I originally got them from a magazine somewhere. They are ridiculously easy to make.

Baked Crab Rangoons

1 package wonton wrappers (found in the produce section by the tofu)

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

1 package crab meat (real or imitation - your choice)

1 green onion, chopped

1/4 tsp garlic salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

Preheat your oven to 350. Mix the cream cheese, crab meat, garlic salt and onion powder well with a mixer. Place one wonton wrapper in each cup of a muffin tin. Press them down into the cup and press the wrapper up onto the sides. Spoon about 1 T of the crab meat mixture into each cup. Sprinkle each rangoon with a few pieces of green onion. Bake for 15 minutes or until the wonton wrappers are golden. Best served warm.

Took the green onions off for my mom... but it's better with.

Now the cool thing is that this recipes works just as well for fried wontons - just close up the wrapper and put them in hot oil, right? Right. It's just not healthified that way. I've gotten rave reviews of these rangoons in the past - just make sure NOT to use the canned crab meat. I'm serious. I've tried it. Don't do it. Uck.

Since I found the main course on Pinterest, I decided to go with a Pinterest dessert as well. I chose these delicious-looking orange pushup smoothies from Averie Cooks. In the post, she describes how she means to freeze these into actual popsicles. I decided to put my push-up molds from Mindy Mae's Market and make actual dreamsicle push-ups - the popsicles of my childhood. I will include the recipe, since it actually calls for a bit of variation depending on taste.

Dreamsicle Push-Ups

1 can orange juice concentrate, slightly thawed

1 cup milk (half and half, cream, nut milk, soy milk)

4 scoops vanilla ice cream

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cups ice, or to taste

Combine all ingredients, except ice, in a large blender and blend until smooth and creamy, taking care the sugar has dissolved and is well incorporated. If desired, add a splash more milk. Add the ice and blend until smooth.

That bit about making sure the sugar is dissolved? Yeah, do that. I didn't at first. Luckily I tasted before pouring it into molds and blended it longer.

Turns out that if you want these to be actual popsicles you need to plan ahead (REALLY?!) and make them the day before. Otherwise, you'll be eating them like this:

which is how the original recipe presented as well. We ended up pouring our excess into little plastic cups like this:

The top is just card stock punched with a large scalloped punch with a slit cut in the middle for the popsicle stick. These and the molds, when left in the freezer for another day froze well and we DID eat them like popsicles and they WERE scrumptious and DEFINITELY reminiscent of childhood. We'll make these in the summer for sure.

This was definitely a yummy dinner. And what better way to send your husband off on a two and a half week business trip to China (and Peru) than with Chinese food? It's gonna be a long two weeks...

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